Michael Moore attacks the Left

I laughed so hard my sides hurt. An excerpt from his newest book, "Dude, Where's My Country?", reprinted in The Guardian.

How to talk to your conservative brother-in-law

There are a lot of fair-minded, pretty decent Republicans out there, believes Michael Moore - approach them in the right way, and they're ripe for conversion. He tells how in the first of our extracts from his brilliant new book, Dude, where's my country?

Michael Moore
Saturday October 4, 2003
The Guardian

You know the scene all too well. Thanksgiving dinner. The family has gathered around the table to share good times and a hearty meal. The cranberries are ripe, the bird is plump, and that brother-in-law of yours is at it again. "The Bush tax cut is going to put this country back on the road to prosperity!" The room goes uncomfortably silent and somebody tries to change the subject. The brother-in-law continues. He goes through the familiar litany: "too many deadbeats are on welfare"; "affirmative action is reverse discrimination"; "they should build more prisons and throw away the key". Finally, your cousin Lydia has heard enough and calls him a "racist" and a "dick". Suddenly Grandma's special dilled mashed potatoes are flying across the table like an American missile on a sunny morning in residential Baghdad.

Let's face it, almost every family has at least one rightwing reactionary of its very own, and there's not much you can do about it. It's a statistical certainty that for every two liberals, there will be one person who longs for the days of Strom Thurmond and legally accepted date rape. I seem to have encountered most of these guys in the past year. Many of them have written me long letters filled with a passion rarely seen on our side of the political fence. Some stop me on the street. A few of these times I have asked if they would like to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me (though I don't even drink coffee, and they themselves clearly have had way too much of it). I don't engage them in argument but, rather, listen to them rant and rave about Bush, liberals, towelheads and welfare queens. It's quite a spiel.

But, if you listen long and hard enough, you can hear their faint and distant cries for help. It's clear that they suffer from a unique pathology that is slowly driving them insane. They are, at their core, very, very afraid. They are afraid because, ultimately, they are ignorant. They haven't a clue what it's like to be black or hopelessly poor or wishing to kiss someone of their own gender. This basic ignorance leads to their overwhelming and permanent state of fear. The fear quickly manifests itself into hate, which eventually leads to a very dark place. They become consumed with a desire to actually harm others, if not by their own hands (they are usually too afraid to do it themselves), then by having the state act in their stead: "TAKE AWAY THEIR FUNDING! ELIMINATE THEIR JOBS! EXECUTE THE BASTARDS!"

There is no school of therapy I know of to cure this illness; no medication developed yet by pharmaceutical companies for this conservative rage. (Actually, the drug companies need these Republican voters to insure that they will never truly be regulated; so it's in their best interest to make sure that these angry white guys are never healed.) But I firmly believe that many of these conservatives can be shown the error of their ways. They can be encouraged to think differently about the issues we are concerned about. I think there is a way to convert that brother-in-law of yours.

Now, you might say, "Whoa, wait a minute - I'm not into missionary work! Not if it means I have to walk among these cretins!" But don't you want to see change - real, lasting progressive change - in your lifetime? Don't you want to pull the rug out from under this supposedly conservative movement that infects our Congress with so many Republicans? Don't you wanna have a little fun?

I'm not talking about trying to change the minds of the terminally bigoted. I'm referring to the people you know and, yes, love. They take good care of their kids, they keep their houses fixed up nice, they volunteer at the church: and they always, incredibly, vote Republican.

Here's my theory: I don't believe these people really are Republicans. They are just using a word they heard because the word was associated with tradition, common sense and saving money. So they stuck the label on themselves. After all, who was the first Republican you heard about in history class? Honest Abe Lincoln - the guy good enough to be on the penny and the five-dollar bill!

These people are, in truth, Republican In Name Only - RINOs. Ask them a series of questions. Do you want a clean environment? Would you live in a neighbourhood with black people? Do you believe in going to war to resolve our differences with others? Most of the time they will not give the standard Republican answers. I have a friend who refers to herself as a Republican, but when I ask her if women should be paid as much as men, she responds, "We should be paid more!" When I ask her if people should be allowed to dump waste into the lake where she lives, she reminds me that she sits on the board of the local nature preserve. When I ask her how her mutual fund is doing since she was able to get rid of "that liar Clinton", she says, "Don't ask."

So, I say to her, if Bush has driven the economy into the ground, if the Republicans want to make it easier for people to dump shit into your lake, and if you think you should have the same rights as men - then why on earth do you call yourself a Republican?!

"Because the Democrats will raise my taxes," she responds, without missing a beat.

That is the RINO mantra. Even though they know the Republicans will make many parts of their lives more miserable, they hold on to that Republican label because of just one thing: they think the Democrats are out to steal their hard-earned money. If we really want to pull off a slam-dunk of permanent change, we need to bring a few million of these RINOs over to our side. They are waiting there, wanting to jump the fence - just as long as they can take their money with them. I've come up with a bunch of suggestions for how we can enlarge our majority by reaching out to our RINO friends and relatives. Some of them will require a bit of humility on your part. Many of them, I'm convinced, will work.

1. First and foremost, assure your conservative friends or relatives that you do not want their money. You do not want them to make less money, nor do you want them to lose what money they have.

2. Second, every political argument you make must be about them and for them. They base every decision on "How does this benefit ME?" Instead of fighting this self-centredness, just go with it, embrace it, feed it.

3. Journey into the mind of the conservative. What you will encounter is fear. Fear of crime. Fear of enemies. Fear of change. Fear of people not exactly like them. And, of course, fear of losing any money on anything.

4. Tell them what you like about conservatives. Be honest. You know there are many things about conservatives that we like and believe in ourselves - even though we usually wouldn't be caught dead saying them out loud. Tell your conservative brother-in-law that you, too, are afraid of being a victim of crime and want to prevent criminals from getting away with their actions. Tell him that if America is actually attacked, you will be the first to defend the defenceless. Tell him you don't like freeloaders, either, especially that room-mate you had in college who never lifted a finger to pick up a damn thing and turned your place into a pigsty.

Tell him how dependable conservatives are. When you need something fixed, you call your redneck brother-in-law, don't you? You yourself can't fix a damn thing - and neither can any of your whiny liberal friends. Also, when you need a job, who hires you? The conservative who owns the business, that's who. And if you need someone beaten up, that bully who's been picking on you, you certainly aren't going to ask your uncle at the Unitarian church to do it for you. You never know when you're going to need that conservative relative.

Conservatives are organised, on time, efficient, well groomed and consistent. These are all good qualities and attributes, and we wish we were more that way.

5. Admit that the left has made mistakes. Ouch. This is a tough one. But, if you admit that, on occasion, you have been wrong, it's easier for the other person to consider what they have been wrong about, too.

· Mumia [the campaigning Pennsylvania journalist who was sentenced for the shooting of a police officer and has been on death row since 1982] probably killed that guy. There, I said it. That does not mean he should be denied a fair trial or that he should be put to death. But because we don't want to see him or anyone executed, the efforts to defend him may have overlooked the fact that he did indeed kill that cop. This takes nothing away from the eloquence of his writings or commentary, or the important place he now holds on the international political stage. But he probably did kill that guy.

· Drugs are bad. They fuck you up, slow you down and ruin your daily existence. Even though Nancy Reagan can kiss my ass, you really should just say no.

· Men and women are different. We are not the same gender. Do I have to show you the drawings? For instance, very few women pull out a gun and shoot someone on the street. The chance that a woman will mug you tonight on the way home from work is somewhere around nil. That is a quirk specific to my gender. Likewise, very few men could give a shit about making the bed. Why make the bed? Who is going to see it? What are we doing, protecting the sheets from something we don't want them to see during the day while we're at work?

· It's really a bad idea to have sex before you're 18. OK, maybe I'm just jealous because I had to wait until I was 32. None the less, the price to pay for teenage sex is pretty high - unwanted pregnancy, disease, and ending up with one ear bigger than the other because it's always cocked toward the front door in case the parents come home early.

· The sun is good for you. Your skin needs at least 10 minutes of direct sunlight a day for a much-needed shot of Vitamin D. Quit slapping all that sun block over your kids. If you really are concerned about UV rays and skin cancer, then ask yourself, "When was the last time I attended a Greenpeace meeting in order to help make things better?"

· People who commit violent crimes should be locked up. Dangerous people should not be out on the street. Yes, they should get help. Yes, they should get rehabilitation. Yes, we should look for ways to reduce the root causes of crime. But no one has the right to assault you or rip you off, and if you can't bring yourself to show at least an ounce of outrage against those who would harm you, then you just look like a wimp or a nut to most normal people. In fact, I want to assault you right now.

· Your children do not have a right to privacy and you better pay attention to what they are up to. Right now, as you are reading this, they are doing something. What are they doing? See, you don't even have a clue! Put down this book and head upstairs immediately!

· Not all unions are good and, in fact, many of them are just plain lousy. If you belong to one of the lazy, ineffective unions who are in bed with management or Bush, then you need to get your sorry ass down to the next union meeting and run for office.

· SUVs are not inherently evil; the fact that they use so much gas, that they are constructed to be killer machines, and that yuppie weasels drive them in urban areas is evil.

· Getting back to nature is a dumb idea. Nature doesn't want you anywhere near it. That's why nature created cities.

· Too many of us hold a hoity-toity view of religion and think the religious are superstitious 15th-century ignoramuses. We're wrong, and they have as much right to their religion as those among us who have no religion. This arrogance is a big reason the lower classes will always side with the Republicans.

· Why are you still bitching about rightwing author Ann Coulter? Sure, she's as crazy as a loon, but she's got more balls than the entire Democratic Leadership Council. You're just jealous because we don't have an Ann Coulter. And stop looking at her damn legs!

· The proposed "Liberal Radio Network"? What a stupid waste of time. Radio? Are you serious? What century are you in? Gee, why stop there - let's set up a Liberal Pony Express! How about a Liberal Morse code? SOS! Get into the 21st century! Get a TV network. Get an internet network. Get Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent to run for office!

· Animals don't have rights. Yes, they should be treated "humanely". Yes, Tyson Foods and all the others that "harvest" chickens are disgusting. But "freeing" chickens from their factory farms is idiotic. They don't know how to survive in the wild and they're just going to get hit by a truck.

· Nixon was more liberal than the last five presidents we've had. His administration opened up a dialogue with China. He was instrumental in establishing affirmative action in hiring and protecting the rights of women. He was the first president to sign agreements on nuclear weapons control. Nixon was responsible for the 1970 Clean Air Act. He also attempted a type of welfare reform that would have guaranteed an income for the poor. Nixon still should have been run out of office, and the millions of dead in south-east Asia will haunt him throughout eternity. But to think that he was the last "liberal" in office just makes me want to puke.

After admitting that you're not always right, you will find your conservative friend more willing to listen. Then it's time to make the case for why he or she should consider looking at things in a different light. The most important thing is to NEVER make the "moral" argument about why the Pentagon should get less money or why a sick child deserves to see a doctor. We have tried those arguments and they don't work with conservatives, so save your breath. Begin every point with this one sentence: "I want you to make more MONEY!" Then take a stab at discussing the issues with them:

Paying workers more money makes you money!
Dear brother-in-law, when you don't pay people enough for them to take care of life's essentials, it ends up costing you and everybody else a lot of money. When you pay your employees more money, what do you think they do with it? Invest it in stocks? Hoard it in offshore accounts? No! They spend it! And what do they spend it on? The stuff you make and sell! If you pay people squat, or lay them off, they can't buy your stuff. They become a drain on the economy; some turn to crime, and when they turn to crime, it's your Mercedes they want, not some junker Oldsmobile in their poor neighbour's driveway.

Providing daycare for your employees will make you money!
Absenteeism is a huge drain on our gross national product. Estimates put its cost to our economy as high as $50bn a year. The average employer loses almost $800 a year per employee due to unscheduled absences. Forty-five per cent of the time an employee is a no-show for personal or family reasons. Which means that mom or dad has taken time off from work because the babysitter didn't show up, or the kids were sick and needed to go to the doctor, etc, etc. This, my conservative friend, costs your business money. For the price of an on-site daycare room or facility, the company can make more money, you can make more money, and the babysitters can get real jobs with benefits.

Joining a union will make you money!
If you are a worker, and not a boss, who considers himself a conservative and hates unions, I have one question: why? If you want to make more money, "union" is the way to go. According to the US department of labour, union workers make an average of $717 a week. Non-union workers like you make an average of $573 a week. Being a conservative is about you and you making as much money as you can. So why stay non-union?

Clean air and water save you money!
Each year in the US, air pollution kills 70,000 people, equal to the combined number of deaths from breast and prostate cancer. The related healthcare costs from air pollution have been estimated by the government at between $40bn and $50bn annually. We are falling behind other industrialised nations when it comes to investment in energy efficiency. Britain, Denmark and Germany are moving increasingly to wind power, while we, with the world's fourth-longest coastline, are doing next to nothing.

If we could get mileage standards in our cars to 40 miles a gallon by 2012, by 2024 we will have saved more oil than is in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, where Bush is so eager to start drilling. The easiest way to be less reliant on foreign oil is to use less foreign oil! This can be easily achieved by forcing the car manufacturers to produce cars that get more miles to the gallon.

Who cares that it's a good thing for the environment? It'll save you thousands of dollars each year.

Stopping the drug war will save you money!
Rounding up drug users and putting them in prison is a huge waste of money. It costs $25,000 a year to lock up a doper; it costs only $3,000 to provide treatment. Every dollar spent on treatment will save you, the taxpayer, $3 not spent on cops, jails, and replacing that CD player stolen from your car. Plus, keeping drugs illegal doesn't stop their sale. All it means is that you, the conservative entrepreneur and investor, are making ZERO profit from the deal. All the profits go to scumbags. You hate scumbags. Why let them take YOUR money? Legalise the stuff and think of all the money you'll make from a depressed society desperate to get hooked. Americans spend an estimated $63 BILLION on illegal drugs each year and you've legislated yourself out of a piece of that action! Put down that martini and get with it!

Giving lots of money to the public [state] schools makes you money!
When our pathetic schools send a generation of idiots and illiterates out into the workaday world, how in God's name do you expect to make any money? Seventy-five per cent of welfare recipients are illiterate. Don't you think things might be a little different if they could read and write? It totally boggles my mind that conservatives haven't demanded, purely out of self-interest, that our schools prepare young people to contribute and even excel in the workplace. Workers are supposed to bring you great ideas and make you filthy rich. Instead, they're sitting out there in their cubicles trying to figure out how to download the latest Weezer album. I've got a kid in my office right now who thought the UK was Russia, had never heard the name "George McGovern", and figured a legal pad was where you store legal court documents. And he's the smartest one in here! HELP!!!

By never voting for a Republican again, you will make a tonne of money!
Look, I realise that at one time being a Republican and voting for Republicans seemed like the sure way to becoming wealthy. But that is not the way it works these days. Thirty years ago, if you made the equivalent of $50,000, you were rich. You lived in a big beautiful home. And there were hundreds, if not thousands, like you in every town in America. Roosevelt's New Deal had created a massive middle class and the gaps between rich and poor had actually decreased by 7.4% from 1947 to 1968.

All it took to be a rich kid back then was to have your dad be a family physician, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant, a realtor, the owner of a grocery store or a mid-level management guy at the auto company. But all that began to crumble starting in the 1970s when the income disparity really began to widen.

While those living it up in the top 1% have enjoyed income increases of 157% in the past 20 years, the middle class has only gotten a 10% increase. Only 10% for the mass of people who have powered the explosion in wealth we have seen in the past 20 years! The doctor is barely making ends meet, the lawyer is trying to scrounge up enough divorce cases to pay the bills, and the mid-management guy - well, now he tosses a mean tortilla down at Del Taco.

These very Republicans you say you are one of want nothing to do with you. They have either downsized you, fired you, or they've got you doing the jobs of two or three people. They have taken your money in the stock market and made it vanish. They have pushed through tax bills that truly benefit only that top 1%. They are spending your retirement money right now on boondoggle after boondoggle to make their buddies rich.

Now, this is not to say the Democrats are the answer. But, ask yourself, honestly, weren't you doing better as a conservative under Clinton? Sure, you hated his good looks and charm and how he almost got away with that blow job, but get over it! You are being taken for a ride. And you know it.

Drop all this "Republican" nonsense, declare yourself an independent, and then go shopping for a party or for people running for office who are going to try to help you make more money. Any representative who delivers on making our schools and libraries a top priority, who sees to it that everyone has healthcare, who demands that we not live in a society of illiterates, who backs any bill that increases people's wages, and who taxes the wealthy for duping an entire country into bankruptcy - well, that is who you should be working for and voting for, because, in the end, it will all benefit you.

C'mon, brother-in-law! Take a walk on the wild side. It ain't all that bad. Plus, who knows, you might just have a happier Thanksgiving dinner this year!

(©) Michael Moore, 2003. These edited extracts are taken from Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore, published next Tuesday by Allen Lane at £16.99. To order a copy for the special price of £14.99, plus p&p, call the Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. More extracts in G2 on Monday and Tuesday.

[mke]

[Gary Sisco]

Michael Moore wouldn't know a left, or much of anything at all, really, if one bit him on the arse.

[jesus marion joseph]

AINO-Author In Name Only

[Uli]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Michael Moore wouldn't know a left, or much of anything at all, really, if one bit him on the arse.

Let's keep'em coming, Alex.


Always innerested in a little infight

Uli

[Gary Sisco]

It'd only be an infight if Moore had anything to do with a left, any left, now or in the past. But he doesn't and didn't. So, there's no infight.

[walto]

This made me long for the article by Gordon's brilliant guy. I mean, calling people you disagree with nuts is probably not really gonna help much. Moore's theory, that if RINOs only knew what they really wanted, they'd agree with him about every single thing, is so condescending it's even difficult for us pompous pollyannas to get through it.

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
It'd only be an infight if Moore had anything to do with a left, any left, now or in the past. But he doesn't and didn't. So, there's no infight.

Leon Trotsky was a Nazi,
Oh, we knew it for a fact.
Pravda said it, we all read it
Before the Stalin-Hitler Pact.

Once a Nazi would be shot, see.
That was then the party line.
Now a Nazi's hotsy-totsy,
Trotsky's laying British mines.

Oh my darling, Oh my darling,
Oh my darling party line.
Oh, I never will desert you
Cause I love this life of mine.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally posted by walto
This made me long for the article by Gordon's brilliant guy. I mean, calling people you disagree with nuts is probably not really gonna help much. Moore's theory, that if RINOs only knew what they really wanted, they'd agree with him about every single thing, is so condescending it's even difficult for us pompous pollyannas to get through it.

Enough with the Pollyanna crap already!

[walto]

OK

[Gary Sisco]

Moore's nothing more than another spoiled brat of a yuppy, and also another example of how showbiz had superceded politics in the US. No difference in kind between him and Herr Obersturmfuhrer, really, except that Herr Obersturmfuhrer's a lot more popular.

[mke]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Moore's nothing more than another spoiled brat of a yuppy

I thought he was a former auto-worker?

Originally posted by mke
I thought he was a former auto-worker?

Gary and his guru Murray Bookchin have a tendency to overcompensate for their lack of following, not only in the general population, but also in the shrivelling and almost non-existent Leftist milieu (as opposed to "the Left"), by writing anybody off as a Leftist who doesn't subscribe to crankish ideas about libertarian municipalism, goofy macho chest-beating (Gary's veiled threats to shoot any cops on his land, etc. Bookchin is much less convincing on this score. I've heard several reports that the dude dropped a handgun on his foot after trying to show it off in the Goddard college cafeteria), etc.

Hence, Michael Moore is not a leftist, Noam Chomsky is not really an anarchist, today's activists are all worse than useless, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

It's one thing to not have even a marginal following in the general population, but presumably it's even more annoying when you can't get a following in your target audience. In the case of the Bookchin-milieu, this meant first trying to dominate the Green Party movement, and, that tactic having failed, trying to appeal to the anarchist milieu, only to find that all those goofy anarchist kids would much rather read Hakim Bey or Bob Black.

So you can imagine the level of impotent rage in realizing that Michael Moore has reached a broader audience than the Bookchinite milieu ever has and ever will.

Moore an entertainer? Duh. So were Duke Ellington, Pete Seeger, etc. and they had an amazing effect on popular consciousness in the Popular Front era. Michael Denning's The Cultural Front is rather good on this history.

If politics has degenerated to entertainment, it makes sense to have some solid entertainers to talk politics. At least, if one wants to have a mass audience for one's ideas, and not form curious graduate programs in "social ecology" in the hills of Vermont.

[Al in NYC]

Michael Moore is not someone I like a whole lot, but calling him a "yuppie" is really stretching things. Michael is a guy I peripherally knew back in Michigan, and while I don't think he ever worked in an auto plant himself, I know he came from an autoworker family and from Flint MI -- cetainly one of the least "yuppie" places in the USA. I'm pretty sure he never went to college (which may account for his shakiness in areas of history, theory, etc.), and has been a political activist since he was a teenager. He ran this little alternative newspaper, The Flint (later Michigan) Voice, for several years and basically lived in its office when he wasn't out gathering (or creating) news as pretty much its only reporter (well, him and Ben Hamper, an actual autoworker) until the surprise hit of "Roger & Me."

I can't believe I'm going to have to agree with Gary on this, but lets face it Al, you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that Moore is still that same downhome simple man now that he's raking in millions.

Just his overtly full of himself personality points to him being someone completely different.

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by Alex
Leon Trotsky was a Nazi,
Oh, we knew it for a fact.
Pravda said it, we all read it
Before the Stalin-Hitler Pact.

Once a Nazi would be shot, see.
That was then the party line.
Now a Nazi's hotsy-totsy,
Trotsky's laying British mines.

Oh my darling, Oh my darling,
Oh my darling party line.
Oh, I never will desert you
Cause I love this life of mine.

Bravo! Bravo!

[Monte Smith]

Come to think of it, I should be cheering that. That delightful ditty is politics as entertainment.

[Al in NYC]

Now that I might agree with Scott, and I have heard some unpleasant personality reports from those still in touch with him. But then I always found him rather unpleasant and full of himself, even when he was making around $10,000 a year (and he was always effusively and overbearingly goofy). However, to categorize him as a "yuppie" is to throw all of us who came from working-class backgrounds and did rather well in life into that category. "Yuppies" to me are those I see around NYC and elsewhere who get relatively well-off and suddenly become management-types and start grumbling about capital gains taxes, the lack of government funding for private schooling, and those awful people on the subway -- and start voting Republican. Whatever one thinks of MM, at least he hasn't left his working-class roots THAT far behind.

[mke]

Plus, he still looks like a slob. He certainly hasn't dilapidated his millions on clothes or makeovers.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Conservatives are secretly wondering how this liberal guy is making more money than they are. It's not supposed to work that way is it? At least that's what they've believed all this time! And a big mouth liberal to boot!

Free speech ain't fer the likes of them and all that sour grapes bullshit.

[Cem]

I had a lot of respect for MM when he released Roger & Me, even though he'd messed with the chronology of that documentary to make the film's message more urgent. His recent charades have left a bad taste in my mouth. He is like the IKEA of ideology providers. You're bound to find something you like that may suit your needs cheaply. He's become a huge industry at selling ideological packages to folks, who don't know how to or don't want to think for themselves. I see him as a caricature only and doubt his supposed contribution to the left.

Conservatives are secretly wondering how this liberal guy is making more money than they are.

What? Most everyone in Hollywood is liberal. How much money do you think they are pulling down?

Actually I think that Moore is really a thorn in the side of libs like Lynn for instance that seem to have this incredibly rediculous notion that the republicans are the rich and the democrats are the poor. Of course, that attitude helps perpetuate the good vs. evil theme of their belief system. The poor, downtrodden little demmy's against the rich, evil republicans.


Yeah, ok........................................

[mke]

Originally posted by Scott Dolan
What? Most everyone in Hollywood is liberal.

Like Arnie?

Originally posted by Scott Dolan
Actually I think that Moore is really a thorn in the side of libs like Lynn for instance that seem to have this incredibly rediculous notion that the republicans are the rich and the democrats are the poor. Of course, that attitude helps perpetuate the good vs. evil theme of their belief system. The poor, downtrodden little demmy's against the rich, evil republicans.

Give it up Dolan, we all know you've got millions stashed away and that on weekends you jet off to some private island, surrounded by nubile whores.

[tippy]

Moore wrecked the end of his gun documentary with that exchange with Heston. What a weiner.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally posted by tippy
Moore wrecked the end of his gun documentary with that exchange with Heston. What a weiner.

I didn't notice his weiner.

[jesus marion joseph]

It's "wiener". "I" before "e".

[Dennis Gonzalez]

I didn't see his frankfurter.

Actually, I went back to the place where Moore and Heston have words, and I can see Moore's frank, but I think Heston's is shriveled.

Moore and Heston shoulda duked it out with chariots.

Martinez and Zimmer should have done the same.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally posted by Dennis Gonzalez
I didn't see his frankfurter.

Actually, Moore and Heston shoulda duked it out with chariots.

Moore would probably need some affirmative action in the form of an extra horse to pull his chariot so as to "even the playing field".

[Dennis Gonzalez]

That's right, give us folks of color every advantage! How do you think I got this swell jazz career?

Come ta thank of it, I shore could use a 'nuther horse.

[tippy]

Originally posted by jesus marion joseph
It's "wiener". "I" before "e".

DOH!

Okay, sometimes I'm just an asshole...parts of Bowling for Columbine were brilliant and cathartic for me but that ending, where Mr. Moore turns wholly maudlin and places a Sears photo of the dead girl outside Heston's home was just too (TOO) much. Heston didn't kill her. It's like holding anyone who drives a car responsible for the Iraqi invasion (IF that's your philosophy).

Also, since when is Moore a person of color...